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April 14th, 2011

Roatan, Honduras vs San Pedro, Belize – Which is a Better Vacation Spot?

The Battle

In the left corner we have San Pedro, Belize. Belize is the American heavy weight champion for an inexpensive location for vacations. In the right corner is a newcomer to the professional circuit, Roatan, Honduras, not known by Americans but is a Canadian favorite, has an incredible knockout punch. Who is going to win this battle?

About me, the Fight Announcer

I have 26 years of experience, traveling to 30+ countries in 6 of the 7 continents. I know more than any writer in any travel magazine. Sorry, I don’t have an ego, its just that I don’t have a journalism/mass media degree, I simply just lived or traveled overseas. Plus I’m not trying to sell a story for my paying advertisers.

On February 22nd, myself and 3 friends took a vacation that started in Roatan, Honduras and ended in San Pedro, Belize. I will breakdown the differences based on the quality of water/beaches, hotel choices based on price/accommodations, marketplaces, things to do and experiencing the culture, the food, photographic quality, diving accommodations, weather, nightlife and things that impress your senses.

Quality of Water and Beaches

San Pedro has amazing blue waters and long beaches beaches that go on for miles. In the main part of town there are a lot of piers for boats and divers to meet, but really no beaches to enjoy. We ended up only swimming off of one pier, because it was a safe haven for fish and they stayed together in big schools. Off that same pier was the only true spot where a few people actually sat out and sun bathed. San Pedro is definitely not a “beach resort” style location. We rarely ever saw anyone in the water swimming or snorkeling. In the picture below, this is a great representation of the beaches throughout San Pedro.

Outside of San Pedro, you can rent a golf cart [your primary mode of transportation there] and do a lot of off-roading up the coast through the areas inhabited by private residents and private hotels or resorts. This is usually not a choice for visitors, because during our 4-5 hours of sight seeing, we never ran across a single person.

On the ride up north on the beaches we stopped several times to take photographs and jump off a pier or two. Outside of San Pedro, the beaches are disgusting. A lot of trash which consisted mostly of empty quart of oil containers and random flip-flops. The oil containers beat the flip-flops 10 to 1.

Roatan has two major beaches, West End and West Bay. Both are extremely inviting with their soft white sand and beautiful blue water. Roatan definitely gives you the “beach resort” feel, with the amount of people on the beaches and in the water swimming or snorkeling. Roatan has other areas on their 60km island with other great beaches, but these two were the best.

The best snorkeling is on West Bay in two different spots, but its still a lot of fun to snorkel at West End too.

Hotel Choices and Accommodations

My group was on a budget, we wanted to stay someplace clean and inexpensive that had hot water and great air-conditioning. If you’re a high roller, no worries, the results will end up the same based on our experiences in both places.

On Roatan, you have great choices to stay around West End [which was our choice] and West Bay. We chose the West End because we’d be in a quiet part next to the town, so we could experience all the nightlife and have great access to the grocery stores and scooter rentals. West Bay has several beautiful upscale hotels and resorts if you prefer. You’ll have to take a water taxi to West End to enjoy the nightlife though.

We ended up staying at the SeaGrape Plantation Resort, which was the first we checked out. Great rooms, satellite television, refrigerator, great air conditioning and it was for only $55 a night. It was incredibly quiet [except for us of course] and only 5 minutes walk from town. They don’t have internet in the rooms, but we didn’t miss it either, because we were having too much fun every day.

San Pedro had fewer choices to choose from, but the island is also much smaller too. The prices were much higher than Roatan and the quality of the rooms varied a great deal. We ended up finding Spindrift Hotel after checking out several hotels. For about $75 a night you get a decent room with cable tv and air conditioning, but no refrigerator. They also had wireless internet, which we used frequently during our downtime.

Marketplace

Based on size and quantity, San Pedro wins in this area hands down. The choices are greater, a lot of skilled wood carvers selling their wares, and unique items I haven’t seen in other places I’ve been to in South America. Besides booze and food, the locals make a great portion of their income from tourists through selling mementos. In Roatan and San Pedro, you will be approached by locals, trying to convince you to purchase their stuff. In San Pedro though, you are heavily bombarded by the vendors and the taxi cab drivers[on golf carts]. It was funny to see people trying to sell knockoff movies on dvd, on both islands.

Things to do and Experiencing the Culture

On San Pedro we decided to rent a golf cart, in hopes to see what the culture has to offer outside the small town, which I talked about earlier. San Pedro Town is it on the island. A school, an airport, lots of stores and hotels. You’ll love the ice cream in San Pedro. There is also one event in San Pedro, called the Chicken Drop, which was created by the Wahoo’s Lounge. People purchase raffle tickets with specific numbers they choose to buy. There is a cage, pictured below with the numbers, and a chicken must take a crap on your number to win. Someone in the crowd is picked to hold the chicken, swirl the chicken, shake the chicken, then blow on the chicken’s ass. After that, the person sets the chicken in the cage and people wait and scream for the chicken to shit on their number. It was quite entertaining watching the people get into this event.

Roatan has several towns located throughout the island. You have the choice of renting an automobile, 4 wheelers or scooters. We chose scooters because I know how much fun they are. Derek and I used to own motorcycles, so there wasn’t any problem for us. Ryan has never ridden a motorcycle or scooter, but you could never tell, he was a natural on it. We ended up renting scooters on 2 different days, because after the first day, we had too much fun and wanted more. Scooters are the best way to see the island, because you must always be aware of your surroundings when you ride, so you see more.

Off the main road on the island, you can check out Flowers Bay, which is a poor community, but amazing to see the children playing, people sitting on their door steps, and other leisurely activities. Here you capture the poverty level that hits many people in Honduras. I was glad that I got to show everyone what its like outside the tourist areas. It’s very impactful.

The island has many winding roads and the vegetation is absolutely beautiful throughout the island. You quickly realize that you should have booked more than 6 days on the island. During those two scooter days, we had only seen half the island and wanted to see more. Roatan is pretty self sufficient too, growing crops, raising cattle and has the opportunity to grow great coffee and export it if they wanted too.

Near the Cruise ship docking area is a town far more modern than the rest of the island. If you really have to have Applebee’s, they have it there. I can not remember the name of the area for the life of me. In this town, they also have shopping centers and beautiful apartments and condos.

On the island, you can also go swimming with dolphins or zip lining through the air. There’s also an Iguana Farm, which if you visit in the early morning during feeding time, you’ll see hundreds of them right at your feet. It’s a great way to scare the crap out of your wife or girlfriend. I highly recommend doing it for the entertainment value. If you can find them, by asking around, you can quickly find some domesticated deer on West End too.

The Food

I’m not a great source to be discussing this topic, because I LOVE trying the local food sold by vendors in the street and not in a restaurant. I’d have to say Derek, Ryan and Gina fall into that area too. It was a definite tie in this category, because I loved the food in both places.

We did notice on Roatan that a few of the restaurants had bad service, but you can always tell which ones they are, based on how busy they are. We quickly learned to eat at all the places that had lots of customers. You can’t go wrong if you follow this method. Hopefully the owners read this and realize why they’re not drawing in more business. In Roatan, skip eating at Land’s End, we waited for nearly 2 hours for our food. We created rapport with the manager there, but that didn’t even help our cause. I wouldn’t stay there at that resort until they get a new manager too.

When we were in Belize, we only ate at a restaurant a few times. The local Asians there have some great food for cheap in San Pedro. I had to enjoy it more than once when I was there. Otherwise than that, we stuck to the local street vendors. Once we found someone good and cheap, we were a frequent customer after that. The photo is low resolution above, but our cook above fed us many times.

Photographic Quality

San Pedro has the best “looking” water that you won’t be swimming in, but Roatan is the full package of beautiful beaches and beautiful water. Roatan also has a larger package of visual candy for any type of photographer. Whether you’re a landscape photographer, a macro fanatic or a professional photographer scouting a perfect areas for your next photo shoot, Roatan is the best choice.

Diving Accommodations

Both islands offer diving accommodations, but Roatan has a lot more to offer. Everyday in Roatan, you would see so many people coming and going for diving. On San Pedro, I don’t remember seeing anyone boarding a boat or coming back from diving. If you can afford it, take two weeks off and go to Roatan. Go through some of their schools there and go out diving everyday, it will be your greatest vacation ever.

Weather, Nightlife and things that Impress Your Senses

If you’re visiting two tropical destinations when you travel with me, you know that the weather will be awesome and it was. San Pedro seemed hotter than Roatan, but that could also be the nice breeze you get throughout the day in Roatan.

Nightlife was pretty equal. You simply had to figure out where the majority of the crowd was going each night and join in. Roatan seems to be the one that closes down early during the week, but they know how to party on the weekend. In San Pedro, you will have to do a lot of walking between the bars that are popular on a specific night. One will close down and then its time for  a long walk back to the next one.

As for the senses, Roatan takes the cake. You’ll be impressed with the clean air, the smells and breezes from the ocean and the feeling of being relaxed during every part of the day. The only thing missing on Roatan is a game of volleyball on the beach! The plush green jungles of the island are stunning to drive through on a scooter and the views from the top of the mountains were amazing too.

Conclusion to the Battle

I would have to call Roatan the Mike Tyson of this fight, because San Pedro went down in a knockout within 20 seconds of the first round. Roatan has just too much to offer over San Pedro. Roatan is the perfect getaway for budget minded people. The airfare is cheap [we went at the end of Feb., before the gas prices went up], excellent hotels are inexpensive, so you spend more money on the fun stuff. We had so much fun on Roatan, that we cancelled the idea of visiting some of the Mayan ruins on the mainland.

The experience will be far more amazing in Roatan, so if you needed some help deciding between the two for your next vacation, I hope this article was a great help.

In 2013, we will be planning another trip back to Roatan, and we will be inviting all our friends and family to join us on another great adventure. We will be visiting Shanghai, China around May 2012, so look forward to a nice write up and great photos when we get back.

Below are two photo sets I have on Flickr that I will update from time to time, one for Belize and the other for Honduras.

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